Jargon Et Argot Psychiatriques

Abstract

In every society, civilized or not, there is a prejudice against the mentally ill. This prejudice is transmitted to children through a thousand ways, including mass media, which despite appearances, has not markedly changed. In this light of at least a latent social prejudice, what happens to persons exposed to the influence of medical science? How do they change from stereotyped thinking concerning the mental patient, to scientific thinking? It seems that linguistic analysis might help the understanding of the conceptual evolution of doctors and nurses. The common language, having at the same time a denotative and a connotative meaning, every science cannot be happy with it. It must constitute a specialized language, a jargon, which is strictly limited to the denotative meaning. For example, the term ‘crazy’ as used in common language will be designated in psychiatric jargon by technical terms such as ‘psychotic’, ‘hebephrenic’, etc. The expressive role of language being totally excluded from scientific jargon, it is quite possible that a secret and informal language, a slang, will be spontaneously constituted. From an indifferentiated common language evolve, in a scientific milieu, two differentiated languages, a jargon and a slang. This hypothesis seems to be supported by the results of a brief enquiry in a French-speaking hospital: certain slang expressions used secretly to designate a mental patient were found, such as ‘un cas de psy’, ‘un erodé’, ‘un cas de crodome’ and ‘un cas de crodosarcome’. Similarly, psychiatrists were named ‘poètes’ or ‘ceux du vague à l'âme’.